Juniors’ champion pushed the limits

The head of the nation’s biggest port, the massive iron ore facility of Port Hedland in Western Australia, has broken his silence on his shock decision to quit the top post.

Andre Bush’s move comes amid a West Australian government review of the state’s ports and intense industry speculation that he had a falling out with global giant BHP Billiton and Hancock Prospecting, run by Australia’s richest woman
Gina Rinehart
.

The resignation has sent shock waves through the state’s small mining firms, because Mr Bush is credited as doing more than any head of the state’s taxpayer-owned ports to ensure junior miners had access to crucial port space.

Mr Bush, who announced his resignation late last week after nine years at the helm, told Resources Daily on Tuesday he was surprised at the government’s decision to only offer him a one-year extension.

“I wanted to stay on but I wanted a three-year contract – the level of commitment for me to continue up here," he said.

“It was linked to whole review of the WA ports, and because of that review the government are unwilling to commit to greater than one year on CEOs. But that is a bit disconcerting that just because you are doing a review everything stops."

Port Hedland is Australia’s largest and the world’s second biggest bulk commodity port by volume.

Last year it handled a record 179 million tonnes of mainly iron ore shipments as miners scrambled to feed an insatiable Chinese demand for the key steel making ingredient.

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However, the riches on offer in China have made securing space at the Pilbara-based port the most precious commodity of all.

BHP has the dominant position at the port, with it and Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group accounting for the bulk of cargoes.

But Mr Bush had overseen a major expansion drive to accommodate emerging miners, such as Atlas Iron, via the new Utah Point facility and the planned South West Creek development.

The latter was plagued with disputes among middle-tier players, angry that the juniors would get access to lucrative berth space. Hancock Prospecting initially sought the berth’s entire capacity of more than 100 million tonnes, but the Port Hedland Authority eventually awarded Mrs Rinehart’s company 55 million tonnes, with the rest going to junior miners under the North West Iron Ore Alliance umbrella and FMG.

Alliance chief executive Tony Considine said while even the junior miners did not agree with Mr Bush all of the time, he was approachable and was a supporter of the emerging mining sector.

Former state development minister Alannah MacTiernan said Mr Bush’s determination to give juniors a foothold had earned him detractors.

“Andre Bush is one of the most exceptional public servants I have come across," she said. “What BHP used to say is that ‘no one else can come in here because it has limited capacity’. Andre just kept testing and pushing that and actually got the capacity."

Under Mr Bush’s reign the port expanded from a capacity of 180 million tonnes a year, and with future expansions is targeting more than 400 million tonnes.

Mr Bush said access to the port was a “high-stakes poker game" and it was impossible to keep everyone happy.

“It is a difficult juggling act in this position to meet the insatiable demands of the iron ore industry and certainly in my time we as the port authority endeavoured to give the players 95 per cent of what they wanted," he said.

“In this job you will never make all the clients unhappy all of the time. As long as everyone is equally unhappy I will have done a good job."

He refused to comment on speculation that the big miners had lobbied the state government to have his contract shortened, saying only: “ Some might have been more unhappy than others."

Hancock Prospecting did not return calls. BHP declined to comment. WA Transport Minister Simon O’Brien could not be reached for comment.